Top Goal of 2014
Family
To save up $5,000 by June to treat family to a short trip.
To understand my family better by asking and listening to their life experiences
Health
Continue exercising 3 times a week and be at 55kg healthily
To continue getting my silver for IPPT
To obtain brown belt for Karate
Wealth
To be a brand new gold producer with ultimate eagle structure by december 2014
To have an average total income of $4000/month in the year of 2014
To start saving $1,000 per month after June 2014
To start giving family $500 every month after June 2014
To work on something that gives me $3000/mth income and opportunities to learn and meet people during the daytime outside business time.
Mentally
To be able to hold what I want to achieve closely in front of me
Spiritually
To always be applying faith in every aspects of my life, trusting that things will turn out well and the dots will connect when I look back.
Socially
To be a wise person that adds value without effort to people around me (Finish a new book every month)
Leisure
To have my 1st cover on youtube (need to somehow get a nice mic)
Start taking proper singing lessons, once a week
Saturday, 18 January 2014
Friday, 27 December 2013
We Sell Hope
I have recently finalized my company name. It shall be We Sell Hope. Every business sells something and mine will be Hope.
How many people in the world did not realize their true potential merely because they are unaware that they have the power and capability within them to achieve whatever they want to achieve? I believe there are many. How many people in the world did not start their first step of their journey of thousand miles because they did not have that someone to encourage them? I believe there are many. How many people ran out of hope halfway when they were merely three feet from gold? I believe there are many.
A close friend of mine once have a dream of studying at Peking University. She worked hard and obtained great results to get there. Her family had some financial difficulties and she worked even harder in interviews to be awarded an overseas scholarship. I was thrilled when I heard that news from her! One day, she started talking to me about her concerns of studying abroad for four years. She was worried if she could cope with a foreign environment, being away from close friends and family etc. I felt kinda weird as she had always been the positive person (in fact, she was definitely more positive than I was by then). I gave her my usual "Just go for it! I believe you can overcome it!" advice and I asked her why was she so different that day. I was shocked when I heard her reply! Apparently, before talking to me, she had talked to 19 different people about her decision to study abroad. Yet, I was the only one who had encouraged her to go chase her dreams while her other close friends and relatives had casted her their doubts of her not coping.
A few months later, she changed her overseas scholarship to a local one and studied in a local university instead.
I was frustrated man! Just because you do not have the guts to do so, doesn't mean you can tell others that and steal their dream! However, there was nothing much that I could have done. The negativity had swallowed her dream alive. That was one of the few times I felt quite helpless.
What if there were a few more positive people who had encouraged her? Would the decision be different? I do not know. However, I do believe that somewhere somehow, some lives may be changed forever by that added positivity.
I am blessed that a friend of mine introduced me to an association of successful dreamers, who opened up the world of possibilities for me. They taught me that if God had given me a dream, he had also given me the capability within me to achieve it. They taught me how to build strong genuine relationships with my friends and family. They taught me how I can be the master of my thoughts and not be enslaved by them. They taught me that a candle does not lose its light by lighting up other candles and how I, by being successful myself, can inspire others.
I truly think that while I have my own strengths, I am definitely not someone who is more talented than any other people. I am just an ordinary person willing to do extraordinary things. I dream of being extremely successful myself and giving others permission and showing them that if I can do it, they definitely can do it. They are able to do what I do and if they are hardworking and have a dream, they can be as successful as I am or even surpass me. Like a pebble falling into calm water, I do not know where will the ripples reach, but I do hope mine will reach and change some people's lives.
Hence We Sell Hope. We Sell Hope sells hope to people who are looking and willing. We Sell Hope to people who hope they or their family can have better health. We Sell Hope to people who have low self image due to their complexion. We Sell Hope to dreamers who just cannot find a vehicle to achieve their dreams and goals. We Sell Hope to the frightened, lonely, helpless who just wish for someone to guide them to better their lives.
How many people in the world did not realize their true potential merely because they are unaware that they have the power and capability within them to achieve whatever they want to achieve? I believe there are many. How many people in the world did not start their first step of their journey of thousand miles because they did not have that someone to encourage them? I believe there are many. How many people ran out of hope halfway when they were merely three feet from gold? I believe there are many.
A close friend of mine once have a dream of studying at Peking University. She worked hard and obtained great results to get there. Her family had some financial difficulties and she worked even harder in interviews to be awarded an overseas scholarship. I was thrilled when I heard that news from her! One day, she started talking to me about her concerns of studying abroad for four years. She was worried if she could cope with a foreign environment, being away from close friends and family etc. I felt kinda weird as she had always been the positive person (in fact, she was definitely more positive than I was by then). I gave her my usual "Just go for it! I believe you can overcome it!" advice and I asked her why was she so different that day. I was shocked when I heard her reply! Apparently, before talking to me, she had talked to 19 different people about her decision to study abroad. Yet, I was the only one who had encouraged her to go chase her dreams while her other close friends and relatives had casted her their doubts of her not coping.
A few months later, she changed her overseas scholarship to a local one and studied in a local university instead.
I was frustrated man! Just because you do not have the guts to do so, doesn't mean you can tell others that and steal their dream! However, there was nothing much that I could have done. The negativity had swallowed her dream alive. That was one of the few times I felt quite helpless.
What if there were a few more positive people who had encouraged her? Would the decision be different? I do not know. However, I do believe that somewhere somehow, some lives may be changed forever by that added positivity.
I am blessed that a friend of mine introduced me to an association of successful dreamers, who opened up the world of possibilities for me. They taught me that if God had given me a dream, he had also given me the capability within me to achieve it. They taught me how to build strong genuine relationships with my friends and family. They taught me how I can be the master of my thoughts and not be enslaved by them. They taught me that a candle does not lose its light by lighting up other candles and how I, by being successful myself, can inspire others.
I truly think that while I have my own strengths, I am definitely not someone who is more talented than any other people. I am just an ordinary person willing to do extraordinary things. I dream of being extremely successful myself and giving others permission and showing them that if I can do it, they definitely can do it. They are able to do what I do and if they are hardworking and have a dream, they can be as successful as I am or even surpass me. Like a pebble falling into calm water, I do not know where will the ripples reach, but I do hope mine will reach and change some people's lives.
Hence We Sell Hope. We Sell Hope sells hope to people who are looking and willing. We Sell Hope to people who hope they or their family can have better health. We Sell Hope to people who have low self image due to their complexion. We Sell Hope to dreamers who just cannot find a vehicle to achieve their dreams and goals. We Sell Hope to the frightened, lonely, helpless who just wish for someone to guide them to better their lives.
We Sell Hope
Vision - Empowering people around the world
Mission - Empowering dreamers around the world in achieving their dreams
Friday, 3 May 2013
Friendship
"There's something about writing things that makes you look at them differently and think about them in a new way."
Had AC2401 exam today. I must admit it was one of the most unprepared exams ever. This has largely got to due to the decreasing motivation towards studying throughout the years. I know that successful people seek excellence in everything that they do, but somehow just cant get the motivation to work hard for it haha. Afterall, academic excellence doesn't equate to much in terms of life success? Had a small talk with Fang Ting on the way back home. I must say that somehow I really think highly of her, not just because she was the former chairperson of the Audit CCA, but the way she carries herself and the aura she has. Huge potential she has I will say. Anyway, had a fun chat with her on a TED Talk about a north korean escaping and other random stuff heh.
Had a afternoon nap and dreamed something about friendship. I woke up with the song 那些年 in my head. I used to wake up with different songs starting my day but haven had this feeling since entering NTU. It was pretty cool as it feel like a internal jukebox in my head haha. Maybe I were meant to be involved in the music industry heh. The song reminded me of the different friendships that I have/had and made me wonder how they evolve/change throughout the years.
I used to have a very close female friend (whom I call my mei). She was a perfect example for the quote "God send you people into your life for a purpose". I must say that she was a major turning point of my life. She came into my life when I was depressed in JC and we started knowing each other ever since she gave me a handmade birthday card during CCA. To an acquaintance, can you imagine that! :) She was a catalyst for me to come out of feeling depressed and taught me several lessons that I will never forget. 每一天都有微笑的理由！She taught me that to get people interested in you, be interested in them first. She taught me how to love others (in terms of friendship and general love). After which, both of us became busy with our individual stuff and coupled with some of the interpersonal skills lessons that I needed to learn, we grew further and further apart.
I have a very close buddy who had been my brother since secondary 4. We were perfect complements for each other in terms of work as we have perfectly complementary strengths. He was there for me to grow in certain areas and after which, we experienced the 道不同, 不相為謀. We have different values and we grew further apart too. I forgive him and I accept him for that difference. I will say that I still treat him as my brother and will go all out for him still, its just that we have different paths to go.
I realised that everyone came into my life for a purpose and as a lesson for me to learn. It may be for me to borrow their strength in the meantime while I grow internally. It may be for me to learn the attitude of gratitude with them being the example. It may be for me to learn how to love and be loved. It may be for me to see the contrast and know what I truly desire in life. After the lesson is learnt, they may slowly drift away to seek their other purposes in life.
I have learnt from my female friend that "Don't cry because it ended, smile because it happened!" While I want the different friendships to stay exactly the same as before, I decided to treat these as important experiences in my life and be glad that they happened! 10,20 years down the road when we meet again, I hope that we will make time to have coffee with each other and we will still laugh together at the silly times we had with each other. :)
-Off to read Jim Stovall's The Ultimate Journey!
PS: Sometimes I wonder, how many of my friends still blog nowadays? haha. Well, Im blogging for myself so it's ok heh. Just wondering.
Had AC2401 exam today. I must admit it was one of the most unprepared exams ever. This has largely got to due to the decreasing motivation towards studying throughout the years. I know that successful people seek excellence in everything that they do, but somehow just cant get the motivation to work hard for it haha. Afterall, academic excellence doesn't equate to much in terms of life success? Had a small talk with Fang Ting on the way back home. I must say that somehow I really think highly of her, not just because she was the former chairperson of the Audit CCA, but the way she carries herself and the aura she has. Huge potential she has I will say. Anyway, had a fun chat with her on a TED Talk about a north korean escaping and other random stuff heh.
Had a afternoon nap and dreamed something about friendship. I woke up with the song 那些年 in my head. I used to wake up with different songs starting my day but haven had this feeling since entering NTU. It was pretty cool as it feel like a internal jukebox in my head haha. Maybe I were meant to be involved in the music industry heh. The song reminded me of the different friendships that I have/had and made me wonder how they evolve/change throughout the years.
I used to have a very close female friend (whom I call my mei). She was a perfect example for the quote "God send you people into your life for a purpose". I must say that she was a major turning point of my life. She came into my life when I was depressed in JC and we started knowing each other ever since she gave me a handmade birthday card during CCA. To an acquaintance, can you imagine that! :) She was a catalyst for me to come out of feeling depressed and taught me several lessons that I will never forget. 每一天都有微笑的理由！She taught me that to get people interested in you, be interested in them first. She taught me how to love others (in terms of friendship and general love). After which, both of us became busy with our individual stuff and coupled with some of the interpersonal skills lessons that I needed to learn, we grew further and further apart.
I have a very close buddy who had been my brother since secondary 4. We were perfect complements for each other in terms of work as we have perfectly complementary strengths. He was there for me to grow in certain areas and after which, we experienced the 道不同, 不相為謀. We have different values and we grew further apart too. I forgive him and I accept him for that difference. I will say that I still treat him as my brother and will go all out for him still, its just that we have different paths to go.
I realised that everyone came into my life for a purpose and as a lesson for me to learn. It may be for me to borrow their strength in the meantime while I grow internally. It may be for me to learn the attitude of gratitude with them being the example. It may be for me to learn how to love and be loved. It may be for me to see the contrast and know what I truly desire in life. After the lesson is learnt, they may slowly drift away to seek their other purposes in life.
I have learnt from my female friend that "Don't cry because it ended, smile because it happened!" While I want the different friendships to stay exactly the same as before, I decided to treat these as important experiences in my life and be glad that they happened! 10,20 years down the road when we meet again, I hope that we will make time to have coffee with each other and we will still laugh together at the silly times we had with each other. :)
-Off to read Jim Stovall's The Ultimate Journey!
PS: Sometimes I wonder, how many of my friends still blog nowadays? haha. Well, Im blogging for myself so it's ok heh. Just wondering.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Sunday, 20 January 2013
Setting a direction in life
A good friend of me sent me this facebook message recently.
"Hi Ruihong! I read your blog again. Do u know how to set a direction for ourselves so that we are able to embrace a whole new year? What do u mean when u say 'set a direction'? Thanks!~"
Interesting and Important Question! Haha
Imagine now you are walking into a church. The church is decorated with flowers, with a peaceful music playing in the background. There are a lot of people with a big portion of them being familiar faces. As you walk closer into the church, there is a coffin and inside it lies you! Then someone started speaking. You turn towards the voice and you see someone whom you respect a lot. You then realised what he/she is speaking now is your eulogy.
(with all due respect, the above paragraph is fictitious only. I do know that Chinese New Year is coming soon too haha)
What will your eulogy be?
This is an exercise that I have read in several self-help books and this has stuck with me strongly. When I did the exercise, I realised that I wanted the person speaking my eulogy to speak of me as someone who is widely respected for the impact I had in others' lives. I guess this is one of the reasons why I said I wanted to be a respectable person when the PSC scholarship interviewer asked what do I want to achieve in life. I remember clearly that I did not think through it to give a politically correct answer and I just said something (although vague) that I wanted.
I wanted to be someone who has made an impact in the society, perhaps through means like funding education. I guess I was heavily influenced during my study in The Chinese High School by all the famous Chinese businessmen such as Tan Kah Kee who have made an impact in Singapore society.
I wanted to be someone who has made an impact in people's lives in helping them achieve their dreams. Dream making in a dream-taking world. I have a very good friend who changed her MOE overseas scholarship to Beijing University to a local one, partly to the negative comments saying that she will not be able to take care of herself alone Beijing University. Apparently, I was the only one who encouraged her to go to Beijing University, out of the 20 people that she asked for advice! In the end, she stayed in Singapore to study and her dream of studying there just dissipated. While I do not know whether she is just not the type of dreamer who will work and persevere towards her dreams, I do remember feeling angry when I heard her decision, feeling angry towards the dream stealers. It makes me really wonder, how many peoples' dreams are stolen everyday in this world? I know that I alone will not be able to do much, but if I can gather all the dreamers, we can certainly make an impact.
Something I realised is that what makes who we are today are our experiences and our responses to it. Though some things may seem tiny at the moment, they may sow seeds in our minds and manifest into certain beliefs.
These sums up my current life vision: "Empowering dreamers around the world in achieving their dreams".
While I really do not know whether my purpose in life is exactly that, I do believe that I am born to be great, just like everyone else.
My mentor will always say,"There is a dash between the birth date and the death date, that represents your life. Life itself has no meaning, we give meaning to it"
Birth Date - Death Date
So basically, setting a direction in life will be clear when we ask these questions to ourselves.
What meaning do you want to give to your life?
What do you want your eulogy be?
I am recently reading this book called "Goals" by Brian Tracy! Will share awesome goal setting tips from it on my next blog entry :)
Sunday, 30 December 2012
Reflections
So fast and it is the end of 2012 already!
It is amazing (even to me!) that this blog is still alive and I am still posting! I have obtained this blog from Tania, a good friend of me who gave it to me as a birthday present in 2007. I had merely mentioned then that I did not have a blog as I did not know how to create blog designs and she straight away spent time to create it and gave it to me. Thx alot Tania! (I dun think she is still reading my blog though haha)
This is a time for reflection on 2012, whether did we make the year count or we merely counted the year. This is also a time to express our gratitude to the people and the events whom we met during the year. Most importantly, this is the time for us to set a direction for ourselves to embrace the upcoming new year.
My life mentor, William, has given us certain directions for us to end and start the year and my blog entry will be drafted in that order. There are a few questions for us to ask ourselves and I will strongly encourage you if you are reading this blog to do for yourselves as answering these questions may empower you with the strength and courage to make the coming year a leap year for you! (as it did for me)
So here we go! :)
What have I achieved for the year 2012?
I have learnt and appreciated the importance of master mind alliance and the power of spoken word in two of my modules! I had a project group which has positive people. The positive project group is supposed to take part in a marketing game called Markstrat where groups are supposed to act as marketing companies and compete against each other. The module grade will hence be determined by the ranking at the end of the game. We had a poor start due to bad decisions and being unfamiliar with the system. We were the last for the first 3 sessions out of the total 8 sessions. Knowing that speaking positive works, I rallied the team to speak positive, saying stuff like "we are the rising star", "all these were meant for our dramatic comeback in later periods", " we are going to be the market leader". An amazing thing happened is that the rest of the team members started echo-ing that too! At the 5th session, there was a dramatic change in tide and we jumped from the last to the first and we maintained that till the end of the game. This taught me that everything is possible if everyone is united, speaking positively and working towards a common goal. Thx Neritta, Liying, Germin! :D Will always remember BM213 The Rising * ! :D
Team Rising *!
I have finished my professional attachment at South West CDC! I have learnt to organise events, coordinating all the logistic work! I have met fun people who treated us interns very well too! I felt so taken care of by the many colleagues there haha. Thx everyone for the memories, the fellow interns and terms for the company, and especially kat who treats me super well :)
South West Bear Yo!
A cute cute girl girl who participated in my event at JCube Ice Rink
I have learnt how to dance hip hop! :) Taken a module from NIE, called Introduction to Hip Hop and its dances. Learnt to dance basic moves and have learnt to dance properly to music! haha. (I thought i am good at dancing until I had my 1st lesson heh)
Yeah, somehow we got onto the front page of zaobao too lol
For my business, I had been the floor manager for events handling four five hundred people! I have learnt how to run such scale of events, while taking care of the logistics, ticketing, audio/video at the same time through delegating.
I had run sundown marathon of 10km under 1 hr! My timing was around 57 mins if i remember correctly. Was pacing with edmund and I must say pacing with someone is really crucial to achieve the timing that I want as at different points of time, each of us was only keeping up the pace to catch up with the other. :)
I had a singing mod called Magic of the Voice at ADM! :) It was one of the most fun and relaxing module in my 3 years in NTU so far! As it is the only lesson on tues, every tuesday I will just go to school sing song and go home. haha! Got to improve my singing (especially controlling and hitting the high notes) and meet fellow friends who are enthusiastic in singing too! :)
I have gotten my 1st ukulele! I have learnt to play a song on it so far and the song title is called Jingle Bells haha
Most importantly, this year I have learnt to appreciate the attitude of gratitude. I used to be complaining why I am not getting this and that. If u know me, u should know that I am quite a perfectionist and I expect everything that I do to be sort of perfect and working well. I guess sometimes people will have to lose something for them to appreciate what they have. Do not worry about what you have lost or missed, appreciate what you have left. Sometimes events that are bad may happen, but in actual fact, everything happens for a good reason! Everything is perfect, albeit that it is incomplete. Having a fever may look bad, but it is a good sign for you to take note of your health and quickly take care of it before it accumulates into something that is irreversible. Things may look bad now, but have faith that there will be a good ending and when you look back, you will realise that all dots are actually connected somehow.
What am I thankful for?
I am thankful for my family for having me and providing me with a safe and secure home to live in.
I am thankful for my family members' health and everyone is alive and walking, despite my grandma going into hospital a couple of times this year.
I am thankful for my own health. With the help of nutrilite, I did not fall sick at all this year. I am thankful for my high metabolism such that I do not need to worry about gaining weight and I can eat all the food that I like.
I am thankful for my close friends, in and out of my business for supporting me. I guess I will send them a personalised message each haha. Gratitude not expressed is like a present not given.
I am thankful for my business as it allows me to achieve my dreams and goals and I am limited only by my hardwork and my desire. I am thankful for my mentors for showing me the way and helping me live a better life.
I am thankful for living in a safe and convenient country. Instead of spending time complaining about delayed train rides, I think we should focus more on living in this safe little red dot where there aren't any natural disasters or random people shooting in schools. I had a friend whose entire family needs to evacuate from their homes due to the flooding in Philipines. Never take such things for granted.
What are my goals for the year 2013?
Health: I will be 55 kg by the end of 2013. This will be done by me exercising thrice a week; 1 karate training, 1 strength training and 1 cardio training. I will sleep by 12am in usual days other than those with business dealings.
Family: I will spend more quality time with my family. When eating meals together, I will just focus on eating meals and talking to them instead of listening to cds or watching videos.
Wealth: I am a brand new platinum by 31 dec 2013, earning a passive income of at least $4,000, with an ultimate eagle structure. Do ask me for more information if you do not understand what I have just typed. I will have a savings of $2,000 from my allowances and tuition income too while not being in any debt.
Academics: I will have a CGPA of 4.0 and above despite only using weekdays daytime to study. My study skills have also improved in productivity such that I can spend less time to get better results.
Mentally: I have learnt to have a pleasing personality, being able to relate to more people, win more friends and influence more people. I have learnt the art of tolerance and be patient in explaining ideas and concepts. I have also learnt to be calm at all times and be able to handle all situations occurring in my life.
Spiritually: I have learnt to apply faith in my life, trusting that things will turn out well when they are coming from the unseen to the seen.
Socially: I have added value to people around me, be it being a good listener, adding value by sharing success principles verbally or via blog and helping my close friends out. I have also maintained at least 1 blog post a month for this blog, with the purpose of adding value by sharing the things I have learnt from books and to eventually have my own book.
So goals to achieve:
1)To be 55 kg healthily
2)More blog posts, to be typed properly such as to be compiled into a ebook eventually
3)Have even closer relationship with family and friends
4)Platinumship, earning min $4k/mth
5)Run a full marathon under 5 hrs
6)GPA of 4.0 and above for both sems
7)Have a pleasing personality, more patient and tolerant.
8)Added value to people around me
Thats all for now! It's 3.05am now and I have just added the goal of sleeping early after looking at the time now haha! So, happy new year to all! New year, new you :)
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